Orbitz Booked Me Into Hotel With No Vacancies

Andrew says Orbitz screwed up his trip to New York by booking and charging him for a room at a hotel that couldn’t honor the reservation. He arrived at the hotel at 9 p.m., but there was no room waiting for him.

A battle of finger pointing commenced. He writes:

The hotel staff contacted Orbitz. Instead of the Orbitz customer service agent and supervisor trying to rectify the situation, they first spent the better part of 20 to 30 minutes discussing whose fault this mistake had been – theirs or the hotels.

Finally, I was placed on the line with the supervisor (“Bob” with ‘call center’ static throughout) who first wanted to re-iterate that he felt it was the hotel’s fault that I had been booked into a room that was not available. That was of no use to me as: a)I had paid Orbitz for the room and not the Hotel so whose fault it had been was of no concern to me and b)I simply needed a place to stay that night.

I was then placed on hold for, and this can be confirmed both by your call logs and by the hotel staff at the hotel who were incredibly patient….a total of 2 hours. Let me say that again – 2 hours; while this supervisor (at a large travel website) started looking around for another place for me stay that night. You’d think he was just someone with a phone and a random number generator.

Had this been an individual or perhaps even a small travel agency, I might have seen past the incredible delay at simply trying to find a hotel room in the area – but I was speaking with a supervisor at Orbitz. His first attempt at booking a room found one on the other side of the city. I asked if, being a travel coordinator he might know the geography of a large, well-traveled area such as New York – he said as he wasn’t from the country…he did not. This complicated his search all the more. His 2nd attempt – he asked me to use my credit card to hold the room at a nearby hotel. Despite my giving him this number and despite the fact that Orbitz should be able to pay for a room, the reservation escaped his grasp.

After not receiving the room I paid for at the hotel and being on hold for 2 hours, I asked what any reasonable person would in this situation – that Orbitz pay in full for my room for the evening. He informed me, despite being a supervisor that he was not authorized to do that. Infuriated, I had him refund my credit card (a confirmation email of which was sent to me), and said that my business with Orbitz was done.

The Mayfair hotel staff was incredibly graceful. They also said that Orbitz was pretty much the only company that consistently went over their ‘room allotment’ leading to this problem ad nauseam.

If you’ve ever booked a hotel and been stranded, how did you handle the situation?

I’ve had luck looking up the best rate on Orbitz and then calling the hotel directly and ask them to honor the rate. Doesn’t work every time, but at least 50% of the time. Then I don’t have to deal with a 3rd party.

This is definitely the way to go. I book travel for a couple managers and Orbitz is our “corporate travel partner.” After a couple of lost reservations (nothing like getting a call at 11 pm from your very angry boss who’s just arrived in Shanghai!) I book exclusively through the hotels themselves. They’re much easier to deal with, they always give the traveler their frequent user points, and they’ll almost always match Orbitz’s price. Plus, I feel better because all of the money goes to hotel (or most, ex cc fees, etc).

I have almost never found that sites like Orbitz give me a significant enough discount on hotels and flights that I’m willing to put up with stuff like this.

Booking directly with the airline and the hotel is absolutely the best way to go. I’m surprised the hotel even let him use their phone, frankly. He is Orbitz’s customer, not theirs, so they are absolutely not beholden to him in any way.

Agreed. I’ve never booked through Orbitz/Expedia/Priceline/etc. And if something goes wrong with my airline ticket or hotel reservation, I know exactly who to talk to. There’s no pointing fingers at another company.

In this particular instance, the only reason that he’s not also the hotel’s customer is that Orbitz screwed up the reservation. It’s called the hospitality for a reason… the best places provide a hospitable environment. I can imagine that some hotels might not be so accommodating, but the fact that they were just speaks well for their attitude about customer service.

Orbitz is a singular entity. There’ no way for Orbitz corporte to say, “Oh, that’s a local problem just with Orbitz in [redacted,]” or, “Well, in response, we fired the cashier in [redacted,] so problem solved,” like a grocdry store could.

It’s not (usually) that don’t give out the name of the company, but with a particular companies chain location. Why they redact the location, I don’t know. It’s not like it’s the site that is badmouthing a particular branch.

First – His 2nd attempt – he asked me to use my credit card to hold the room at a nearby hotel. Despite my giving him this number and despite the fact that Orbitz should be able to pay for a room, the reservation escaped his grasp.

Then – After not receiving the room I paid for at the hotel and being on hold for 2 hours, I asked what any reasonable person would in this situation – that Orbitz pay in full for my room for the evening.

Wait…so the guy at Orbitz was able to find a room for the evening? Because the previous sentence contradicts that. How can they pay for a room you say they’re too incompetent to reserve? Were they able to find a room after 2 hours and then refused to pay for that? Maybe there was a third, successful attempt? It doesn’t say so in the letter.

I’m not saying that someone didn’t fuck up badly; I’m just saying that the summary of the event is hard to follow.

The first attempt was at a hotel Far Far Away. The second attempt fell through (possibly due to incompetence).

Then OP asked for Orbitz to pay for a room (presumably also refunding OP) and was surprised that supervisor can’t just give money away. Finally, OP gave up, had Orbitz refund the money, and hopefully found a place to stay on his own.

Ah, so he wanted them to pay him for the room he wasn’t using. I think I understand now. And I understand why it would be difficult or impossible for Orbitz to pay the client directly for a room that was never used.

He wanted them to 1) refund his money and 2) in the event of finding a 2nd room, comp it. This is in my experience a pretty standard procedure when a hotel overbooks itself and has to find you a different place to stay.

yup, when we overbooked our hotel too far and had to “walk” guests we paid for the first night somewhere else and usually offered them a discount to come back to us the 2nd night. Room tax and 1 phone call, like prison but with cleaner sheets.

You’re quite right. I’ve seen this happen five or six times (although I’ve never been the unlucky guy who was “overbooked” for a non-existent room). In each case, the hotel refunded the reservation money, comped a room at another hotel AND provided transportation there (in one case, both ways for three days, as it was a convention at the first hotel). The idea that the OP is asking for something unusual seems reasonable — unless you realize he’s not. It’s normal practice.

This is customary for the hotel industry, and not at all unreasonable. A few times I have been given my ‘walking papers’ and the hotel or travel company which is at fault pays for that night AND issues a refund. It is sometimes extremely inconvenient to find accomodations at the last minute (i.e. whan a convention is in town), and can also be very expensive. This would be analogous to getting bumped from a flight and getting a free flight coupon or other compensation.

It sounds like Orbitz is trying to shirk their responsibility, and hide behind some Indian call center. Sadly this is a common tactic of corporate America.

Imagine that- a company which promises to provide safe lodging to travelers being held accountable for doing so!

So what happened? He lost the first reservation, but did he find a second one? Did Orbitz charge his credit card? I need closure!

Also, if at all possible, I suggest letting any friends/family/acquaintances in the area know you’ll be around, just in case something like this happens. Of course on my salary, hotels are out of the question and I have to stay with friends anyway. Paying by doing dishes doesn’t just work at restaurants :)

I only use these websites for research purposes, to find the cheapest hotel/flight. I always book directly with the provider, and it’s usually exactly the same price.

The only two times it’s worthwhile are when they’re splitting it between two airlines, which you cannot typically do yourself, or when it’s an opaque booking site like Hotwire/Priceline, which provides a huge discount compared to a known booking.

We booked a room through American Express Travel but the place was a dump and stinky (we had booked a no-pet room) and not as advertised. Amex Travel staff is located in India and have no concept of US geography or distances. After hours on the phone we gave up and found an alternate hotel on our own.

Yes. I booked directly with a Holiday Inn in a popular destination. I even went so far as to note that our flight arrived late while making the reservation so that they would not give away our room. However, when we arrived, we found ourselves in a pickle. There is a law in CA that if a current guest wants to stay another night and the hotel does not have availability (because of reservations) that they HAVE to let the first guest stay and bump a reservation. So as you can guess, despite doing everything right, we got bumped because someone else wanted to stay another night. They were not sympathetic at all. However, I knew someone who had once worked in a hotel who informed me that should this ever happen to me, it is policy that they are supposed to put you up at another hotel and pay the difference… so I called them on it.

They were familiar with that policy and then wanted to send us to a hotel 20 miles away because they had a similar price to the one that I had booked and was part of their chain. I said no way. There were TONS of hotels surrounding this one and they had open rooms but they were slightly to significantly more expensive.

Now before anyone gets their hackles up about this… we were totally reasonable. I had reserved this room for $95 a night and the one up the street (pulled out my laptop and cell phone to find a new room) was $125 a night. So I wasn’t being totally unreasonable by not wanting to drive 20 miles and expecting them to pick up the difference. The hotel manager said no.

This is where the fight started. I called corporate and they even yelled at the manager. The manager would not back down so I had it and just went to the other (nearby) hotel, checked in and went to sleep. The next day, I filed a charge back for the Holiday Inn reservation (because they took my money and did not give me a room) and fired off a letter to corporate. Not only did I get my charge back but corporate sent me a check for the difference between the two rooms.

I was really lucky to have my laptop with me and was able to pick up a signal that night, so now I travel with either my laptop or some sort of device with wifi access because people suck and can’t do the right thing.

It’s not just California. 47 of the 50 states treat hotel rooms just like apartments. If you want to stay and the hotel wants you out, the hotel has to serve you with an eviction notice, as if you were in an apartment. The hotel can do other things, like charge full rack rate for the nights that you overstay, but they can’t just kick you out.

That’s interesting, because it seems like it has serious potential for abuse. If I want to stay in a hotel for the weekend, but they have no rooms available Saturday night for reservation, then I can just make a reservation for Friday and then ask to extend the stay on Saturday morning. Thus the poor schmuck that booked in advance before I even looked up availability loses out.

If the Mayfair hotel staff kept seeing this sort of thing play out over and over, you’d think they’d give a heads up to the decision makers that doing business with Orbitz just puts a lot of pissed off people in their lobby and puts them in a no-win situation.

If it’s the hotel not maintaining reservations properly, then they can’t really handle the broker game. If it’s Orbitz overbooking, then they’re just instigating. It’s time to file irreconcilable differences.

My name is Shalon with the Orbitz Customer Relations Team in Chicago. I saw your post, and would like to see if I can assist. Can you please email to me your Orbitz record locator, and I will review and respond back to you. Our email address is customerrelations@orbitz.com. Please include the blog in which you posted, and put attention to Shalon in the subject line.

“Hi, My name is OrbitzPR. You are making us look bad in public. Instead of doing the right thing at the time and avoiding this whole mess, we’d like to do some damage control now in an attempt to sweep this under the rug.

Please contact us so we can give you a paltry voucher good for your next screwed up stay in exchange for a binding agreement to never say anything about this again.

Of course, had you not gone to consumerist or other public venue, we wouldn’t have given a shit.

That’s typical for all businesses; they really don’t give a rats tushie about individual customers unless the customer manages to create a stink like getting the story out on the web. If this story had not appeared on the web, Orbitz would not have cared one bit.

One must remember that these days businesses do not care about any silly things like making customers happy; it’s all about profit. Customer unhappy about service? so what? Customer not coming back? There are always other customers. Customer got something on the web that makes us look bad? Send a Cease and Desist or sue him.

I once booked a room at Best Western for me and my wife’s trip from the east coast to the midwest. The room was secured with a credit card. When we arrived at 11:00 that night, we were told that our room was given away. Their explanation:

“We called your phone number to make sure you were coming. The person who answered didn’t know who you were, so we gave your room away.”

1. You called at 6:00 PM, when we were already on 8 hour drive from home to your hotel.
2. You dialed the wrong number.
3. The room was secured with a credit card, so whether we arrived or not, we were on the hook for the charge of the room. So you just either wanted to double dip on the room charges for the night, or sell our room at a higher rate to someone else.

They would take no responsibility for this fiasco, and didn’t try to get us into a different hotel. We found one close by, at about double the price.

We contacted Best Western, and though this was an ‘independently owned franchise’, corporate refunded me the full amount of the other hotel room when I faxed them my receipt.

Odds are whomever the property owner was wanted to make a few extra bucks by dinging someone for the last minute room rate and canning your reservation. I’m pretty sure BW took it out on that owner by dunning him for the money you spent at another hotel.

I ended up in Spain without a reservation. The desk manager went back returned with a letter and fax transmission log that he had faxed our travel agent a week prior that they were unable to confirm the reservation (hence there never was one).

It was a pain. The flight was lousy and I had been up about 24 hours at that point. We ended up just going to the hotel where our conference was being held (very expensive) with the expectation we would just through ourselves on the mercy of accounting later.

The next day we were forced by accounting to move the prior hotel. The rooms had largely been occupied by the passengers of a cruise ship. 2 days later higher level employees came out, determined that the hotel was not to their liking (it wasn’t bad) and we all got to move back to the Hotel Arts where we started. I certainly didn’t complain.

I’ve had similar issues with Orbitz before, but just this week I made it work in my favor for a change! I needed to stay overnight in Atlanta due to a schedule change that caused me to miss my original flight. I don’t like hotel shuttle vans that stop at 20 places on the way to the airport, and Atlanta now has two Marriott-branded hotels attached to the free rail shuttle (Sky Train) connecting to the car rental center. One hotel was $125 and the other was $190 (online pricing), but it was too late to book directly with Marriott online. I called the $125 option and was told they were booked up. The $190 one had vacancy, but was too expensive. Orbitz allowed me to book a room at the $125 place online, then I went there, was told there was no vacancy and stood my ground to be moved to the other Marriott next door, not moved to a hotel that did not have rail access to the terminal, which is why I chose this hotel. I got it. The hotel had just opened that week and the suite was huge and clean with a great view…for $125.

I didn’t have quite the same experience. But even booking through the hotel’s own reservation system doesn’t guarantee the room that’s on your reservation. The Hilton Anatole in Dallas tried to shuffle me off into a part of their hotel that was under construction. I had reserved specifically in another part of the hotel (which wasn’t a special request, their hotel is divvied up this way already).

I showed up once to no reservation. The hotel said their fax was down, so they did not receive it. I didn’t spend 2 hours on the phone with someone in India, nor would I. The hotel knew about the other hotels in the area (who in turn probably send people to them when they’re booked), I called and booked one myself, and off I went. At 9PM, it makes more sense to me to deal with a website later, rather than staying awake until midnight trying to resolve it right then and there.

I got screwed when Expedia sent me to a sold out hotel, and I arrived at the hotel less than an hour after making the booking. Never again!

My experience (and I am a frequent traveller) is to NEVER book a hotel through any website other than the one for the hotel in which you are staying. Even the CSC’s for the chains seem fully capable of screwing things up. Call the hotel directly, tell the reservation clerk that you can’t make their website work for you (technically, it’s not a lie), and book the room directly on the phone.

I realize that telephones are 20th century technology, but you will get no worse a rate than that which the hotel offers on its website, and that rate is almost always within $5.00 of an Orbitz or Hotels.com rate. The best part is you get the hotel’s own confirmation number, so there is never a question about being in the right hotel on the right day.

The same is true for the airlines, by the way. Fares on airline websites are typically the same as Orbitz, but there are no conflicting confirmation IDs and seat selection is much easier.

I have had exactly the same thing happen to me, but with Expedia. The hotel manager told me that the only company that doesn’t do this is hotels.com, and I’ve been using them without problems ever since.

When I called Expedia, they also tried to book me all the way across San Francisco in a hotel where they wanted me to pay an additional $150/night. I told them no way – this was their screwup, and they’d better get me a room nearby of at least equal price, and if it went over they should eat the cost as compensation for their mistake. It took 2 hours on the phone, but they did – mostly. The place they got me into was a seriously crappy hotel, but it was no farther away from the meetings than the hotel I was supposed to be in.

I have booked through hotels.com and got stuck in a similar situation. The hotel closed down after I had made my reservation and I did not get any notification. I even got the confirmation email a few days before my stay. After probably 3 hours on the phone with them, they put me up in a better hotel for free and sent me a $100 voucher. While it sucked, they at least compensated me.

I have booked through hotels.com and got stuck in a similar situation. The hotel closed down after I had made my reservation and I did not get any notification. I even got the confirmation email a few days before my stay. After probably 3 hours on the phone with them, they put me up in a better hotel for free and sent me a $100 voucher. While it sucked, they at least compensated me.

As an ex-Revenue Manager for Hotels –> It was the hotel’s fault. There contract with Orbitz is to honor those bookings (min 5 rooms a night which can be edited via the web interface in the last moment). This is the story of a lazy Rev Manager that while you were spending two hours figuring it all out out he/she was sleeping or drinking.

My name is Charlotte, and I am part of the Orbitz Customer Relations Team in Chicago. I saw your posting and would like to see if I can assist. Can you please email me your Orbitz record locator and I will review and respond back to you. Our email address is customerrelations@orbitz.com.

I saw this happen to a guy who happened to be staying at the same hotel as us after attending the same concert. It was 2 am and we had just sat in traffic for over 2 hours just to get to the exit to take us about 20 minutes away to this hotel.

Guy was checking in right in front of us and they had already paid for the room online. The counter guy says we don’t have a room for you. The customer basically is like WTF? The counter guy says “I’m sorry there is nothing we can do for you” (bad move in customer service). Customes gets irate, counter guy calls the cops, customer is calming down, cops show up, customer gets more irate, customer leaves very pissed off.

All in all, the employee took no responsibility and blamed a co-worker (by name) for the mistake. He proceeded to tell us that he’s going to Princeton for his PhD and a load of other crap. Other employees the next AM are surprised to hear about the incident and the PhD they work with.

We ended up getting our room for free after a call to corporate because we waited about 2 hours to get checked in due to the mistake in front of us.

The hotel/motel is required to state a given rate for rooms for an entire year in advance. The hotel/motel is required to honor at least a certain number of rooms each quarter, plus a minimum amount of rooms sold during holidays each quarter. Depending on the contract, which ultimately depends on the size of the company, the room rates will be a range of prices, to be sold by the travel site at the highest the travel site can get. I will repeat: The room rates on travel sites are largely set by the hotel/motel.

The reservations are sent by fax or email, or in very rare cases, snail mail. These reservations must be filled by the hotel/motel according to contract. Travel sites are largely computer operated, so room allotments are never exceeded by the travel site, so the hotel/motel cannot use this as an excuse. The contract requires a reservation number to be given to the travel site, confirming the reservation. This also means that a travel site cannot claim the fault is not theirs.

If you hotel/motel has declined the reservation, the travel site will not have the confirmation number. However, the travel site will not tell you this, but you can ask the front desk clerk to call and ask the travel site for the confirmation number from the hotel for the room. If the travel site does not have a number, the room was never confirmed, and the fault is not the hotel/motel, and the travel site is on the hook for room charges at another hotel.

If, however, the travel site has a confirmation number, then the fault is the hotel/motel, and the travel site is on the hook for room charges at another hotel/motel.

My (ex-front desk manager) advice: if you have a messed-up booking, regardless of whose fault it is, you find another room, pay for it, and fight to get refunded. The travel site will rarely be quick or smart enough to find you another room. Or, better yet, ask the hotel staff where they would recommend. Most of the time, the hotel staff knows of several alternatives which they have share recommendations with, and most likely might even call for you (I would, and have many times for customers when I was full).

From a hotel background this issue is not out of the ordinary. We normally book rooms 10-25% above capacity assuming people don’t show up. Sometimes they don’t, sometimes they do.

If you show up with a confirmed reservation the hotel is required to give you a room. It’s called “walking” a guest. Our hotel may be full, we are required to put you up in a hotel of similar value and pay for it. Also, if you are with a group on our property using our meeting space we are required to give you transportation to and from your new location. Managers may not offer this option to you, but you should demand it. We can hold you financially responsible if you don’t honor your end of the reservation, and you can hold us financially responsible if we don’t honor ours.

That being said, this may not apply to travelocity/priceline/orbitz, etc. That was handled through another department so I’m not sure of what commitment the hotel makes.

Also, when traveling and arrvie late always call and ask a note be put in your reservation for late arrival. At the front desk we will give away rooms without a note before bumping late arrivals.